selfish motive for attacking the Papacy. In fact, the very
measures which provoked the Sovereign of England to renounce all
connection with Rome were dictated by the Sovereign of Spain. The
feeling of the Spanish people concurred with the interest of the
Spanish Government. The attachment of the Castilian to the faith
of his ancestors was peculiarly strong and ardent. With that
faith were inseparably bound up the institutions, the
independence, and the glory of his country. Between the day when
the last Gothic king was vanquished on the banks of the Xeres,
and the day when Ferdinand and Isabella entered Granada in
triumph, near eight hundred years had elapsed; and during those
years the Spanish nation had been engaged in a desperate struggle
against misbelievers. The Crusades had been merely an episode in
the history of other nations. The existence of Spain had been one
long Crusade. After fighting Mussulmans in the Old World, she
began to fight heathens in the New. It was under the authority of
a Papal bull that her children steered into unknown seas. It was
under the standard of the cross that they marched fearlessly into
the heart of great kingdoms. It was with the cry of "St. James
for Spain," that they charged armies which outnumbered them a
hundredfold. And men said that the Saint had heard the call, and
had himself, in arms, on a grey war-horse, led the onset before
which the worshippers of false gods had given way. After the
battle, every excess of rapacity or cruelty was sufficiently
vindicated by the plea that the sufferers were unbaptized.
Avarice stimulated zeal. Zeal consecrated avarice. Proselytes and
gold mines were sought with equal ardour. In the very year in
which the Saxons, maddened by the exactions of Rome, broke loose
from her yoke, the Spaniards, under the authority of Rome, made
themselves masters of the empire and of the treasures of